fdisk sees 2TB HDDs as GPT partitioned... Should I leave this or remove it?

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fdisk sees 2TB HDDs as GPT partitioned... Should I leave this or remove it?

Hi All,

I'm setting up a server that consists of 3 hard drives. They are:

- Maxtor 60GB --> OS and packages
- WD Black 2TB (A) --> Will be the /home partition. It will store all data such as music, movies, pictures, documents, etc.
- WD Black 2TB (B) --> Will be used as a backup drive for the 2TB A (where /home will be mounted).

The idea is to have 2TB B mount, synce with 2TB A, copy any new or changed files, and then unmount itself with the use of a script... I would like to try to format them as NTFS, but when I use fdisk I get an error message saying:

Should I remove this partition table? I'm seeing that it used because the drive is 2TB or more, but I don't remember seeing this error before a friend of mine started messing around with it. He used Gparted to try to partition them, and that is when I started noticing this error message when using the "fdisk -l" command.

If I do remove the partition table, can I repartition with that GPT type again in the future? What sort of problems would I be looking at if it's removed?

There should be no problem with removing the GPT partitioning, or with repartitioning with GPT some time in the future as long as you didn't mind losing whatever data was on the drive then.

If you do remove the GPT, be sure you also remove the backup GPT that is located at the very end of the disk. Else, fdisk will continue to see that backup GPT and complain. A GPT-aware partitioning tool should do that automatically when converting to legacy msdos partitioning.

You will run into some weird problems with this approach. I would never format the the /home-partition with a file-system that is not capable to handle Linux file permissions. I would recommend to not use a separate /home, but mount this partition somewhere else, if it has to be NTFS, like /data or /home/user/data.

You will run into some weird problems with this approach. I would never format the the /home-partition with a file-system that is not capable to handle Linux file permissions. I would recommend to not use a separate /home, but mount this partition somewhere else, if it has to be NTFS, like /data or /home/user/data.

The main reason I want to format them as NTFS is if the scenario arises that the server is not functioning I can pull the hard drive out and hook it up by USB to SATA adapter to my Windows PC and have the data accessible still. I wanted to mount /home to 2TB A because I know this is where all of the data/users are stored so it needs to utilize the entire 2TB disk. If I leave it on the 60GB disk with the OS, it will only be like 30-40GB after the / partition takes what it needs...

I don't have to use NTFS if the data on the 2TB HDDs can be read through USB adapter on a Windows PC. So, all in all I don't care what the filesystems are as long as I can access the data with a Windows PC. There is the possibility that I'll buy a 3TB hard drive for monthly backups, but that won't be for a while as I've got too much invested in this server already. But, I wonder if I will have problems using a NTFS formmated external hard drive on the EXT(3)(4) formatted hard drives to copy data?

There should be no problem with removing the GPT partitioning, or with repartitioning with GPT some time in the future as long as you didn't mind losing whatever data was on the drive then.

If you do remove the GPT, be sure you also remove the backup GPT that is located at the very end of the disk. Else, fdisk will continue to see that backup GPT and complain. A GPT-aware partitioning tool should do that automatically when converting to legacy msdos partitioning.

Ok. That's good to know. And, they have no data stored on them... I'm still trying to get everything functioning before loading the data on them. Using my Windows 7 disk, I'm using the DISKPART to wipe the hard drives now. The first one didn't take very long at all (perhaps because there was no data on them yet?). All three disks were showing as having no free space either... kind of weird. I've wiped the 60GB as well to reinstall Debian. The last few times I tried installing the GRUB portion, I ran into problems so hopefully this will solve it.

The 2nd 2TB is being "cleaned" as we speak, so once it is done I'll be diving back into the Linux setup.